


The Watcher

by Alethia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banter, Gen, POV Outsider, Television Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-25
Updated: 2006-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he wanted was the remote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Watcher

**Author's Note:**

> Celinafairy requested brothers bickering over the remote control. I obliged. Originally posted on LJ [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/174706.html).

“Would you stop being petulant?” 

“I could if I knew what that meant.” The lines cast flickering, indecisive shadows on both, TV not tuned to any station.

Sam sighed. “Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse.”

“And now you’re just using bigger words to prove you can.” Mocking.

“Give me the remote.”

“No.”

“Give me the remote!” Frustrated now.

“No!” As determined not to give in.

“Dean!”

“Sam!”

Sam made a jerky, ‘what?’ motion with his hands. Dean softened, a look of Extreme Rationality taking residence on his face.

“Look, how often are we at a motel with cable?”

No hesitation. “Never.”

“That’s right. We’re _never_ at a motel with cable.” Dean jerked his hands decisively, concluding his argument.

“Yeah, and…” Sam didn’t follow.

“Where are we right now?” Dean asked, putting a damper on the frustration and going for calmly reasonable. It might have gotten mixed up with crankily ridiculing.

“At a motel with cable.” Obvious.

Dean snapped his fingers in triumph. “Yes! And what happens when we’re at a motel with cable?”

“You turn into the Reigning Despot of All Things TV. Or a really crotchety bed-bound old man.”

“We watch scrambled porn.” His argument thus ended, Dean turned to the TV in an attempt to achieve said goal.

Sam recoiled on his bed. “Man, if there’s one thing I never want, it’s to be around you and porn at the same time.”

Dean leaned over the gap between the two, wide eyes expressing understanding. “Still scarred from last time?” The mocking was just for fun.

“No, because there was no last time. Any conception of a last time has been obliterated from this plane of existence.”

“Well, I dunno what conception had to do with it.”

Sam screwed up his face, pained. “All right, now I need bleach.”

“And you said I was being a baby.”

A confused pause. “No, I didn’t.”

“Well, it was _implied_.” 

“Oh, my God. Just give me the remote.”

“No.” The Final Word.

Sam turned to action. A scuffle ensued—an awkward tangling between beds easier done at ages ten and six, respectively.

Sam hissed.

“Ow! Hey, you bruised my hand.” Shaking said appendage held all his focus.

“You broke the remote.” Dean said it flatly, personally offended, cradling the cracked piece of plastic tenderly, remote guts spilling into Dean’s hand.

“What— _I_ broke the remote? _You_ broke the remote when you used it to assault my hand.”

“You broke the remote and now you’re going to guy hell for your offense against man and…man.” Eloquent.

Sam pulled his head back, scoffing. “Because if I’m going to hell it’ll be over _that_. And what are you doing using that as a weapon?”

“I was defending myself!” 

“By maiming your brother?”

Dean snorted, remote care forgotten, set absently on the side table. “Yeah, there goes your sex life for the near future.”

“Again with the sex. No sex, Dean!”

“Not for you, anyway. Or me. Tragically.”

Sam shook it off, pushed past it.

Silence and a fuzzy TV screen.

“I did not call you a baby,” Sam said eventually, jaw jutting out.

Dean put a finger to his chin, affecting ignorance. “What does juvenile mean again? Silly me, I can never remember.”

“I know you’re not a baby.” Grudging, all while tracing comforter patterns. Conflict resolution in action. Or inaction.

“Good. Since I don’t treat you like one, we’re square on that.”

A beat.

“The remote’s broken,” Sam offered, breaching the silence.

“That really ruins it for me.”

Sam rolled his eyes and gestured blandly, holding back. “The TV’s, like, five feet away.”

“Exactly!” For it was obvious to all.

“You could get up and change it manually.”

“I do things _manually_ enough as it is.” Grumbled.

“I didn’t hear that.”

Dean glared, circling back to his remorse for the appliance’s untimely demise, off to the big appliance land in the sky. “Why’d you want the remote, anyway? You don’t even like TV.”

“Huh? Oh—uh, preemptive strike.”

“Preemptive strike?” Said flatly, not quite believing.

“It was in self-defense,” Sam mocked.

Indignant. “Defense against _what_?”

“Mutually Assured Destruction.” Small grin, enjoying himself, enjoying confounding Dean.

Dean shook his head, settling back on the bed, pillows stuffed behind his head. “Man, I can’t even deal with you right now.”

“Too many military terms? Retreat is a valid military technique, you know.” Now Sam was needling, hand flexed only so often, grin real if small.

“That’s it! We’re watching the Earth rotate. If I have to put up with this, you’re gonna _suffer_.” Dean jumped up, switching the set from fuzzy lines to the Earth. Rotating.

Novel.

Sam held up his fists, triumphant. “And the good guys win!”

“Oh, that is so not—”

“America is safe from Communism for one more day.” Mocking.

“We’ll ignore the Communist infiltrators eating you from inside-out.”

A beat.

A grin.

“I didn’t hear that.”

They watched the blue-green ball for a while, silent. Fascinated.

Not.

“Why wouldn’t you give it to me?” Sam asked. Sam implied: you always give in to me.

“We have cable and you want to go off and watch the black widow eat her mate on the friggin’ nature channel. It’s unnatural.”

“The black widow?” Cocky.

“You!”

“And how do you know that’s even on TV right now?” Sam turned suspicious, rounding on Dean.

“Wanna check?” Like he had no doubts, confrontational to the end.

Sam did, approaching the set warily and flipping through the channels as quickly as pressing buttons would allow. He stopped on the picture of one spider attacking another. “Huh.” 

“See?” Smug like no one could be.

“Are you developing precognitive abilities? Or do you just know the schedule of every show on the planet?”

Dean rolled his eyes heavenward, like it was a difficult question. “I’m trying to decide which is worse.”

Sam shot him a Look.

“Kidding! Hey, I’m kidding.” An offering in that tone, insult for insult, all is forgiven.

Sam accepted. “And you call me the geek,” he grumbled.

More silence. The widow ate her snack, little spider legs fluttering with their last gasp of life.

“Aw, man.”

Sam smirked; he’d been waiting. “Yes?” Pleasant.

“You won.” Whine whine whine.

“Yes.” 

“By default,” Dean growled, denying the point as unfairly conceded.

“Pride goeth…”

“Underhanded. My own brother.” Not disparaging. No accusation in those eyes, only respect. Feeling.

“Who knows you best.”

“Who won’t even let me watch scrambled porn,” Dean said. Dean implied: who should let me watch whatever I want. And be _happy_.

A dark glance. “I know where you sleep.”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear about that,” Dean mocked, smile sweet and innocent and blameless as a lamb.

Sam covered his face, groaning. 

“Victory too bittersweet for you? Maybe just bitter? A little?” Fingers illustrating the distance, miniscule.

“I might prefer defeat…but I know where that leads.”

A bright grin, punch to the arm. “No way! That’s just gross, dude.”

Silence. A beat.

“Hey, we won’t have to pay for the remote, will we?”

Hmm. Fascinating.

A chance encounter, stumbling to a halt at the flare of energy, and now held in thrall.

They went on the list.

***

Fin. Feedback is adored.


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